


The Things We've Done

by BastardSonOfDay (Diana_Raven)



Series: Bingo Prompts [10]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Gen, me?? writing kallias & rhysand angst??? its more likely than you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 12:42:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14894840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diana_Raven/pseuds/BastardSonOfDay
Summary: Kallias won't forgive him for what he's done, and it's time Rhysand realizes it.Prompt: Trapped Together





	The Things We've Done

**Author's Note:**

> I'm graduating today! So I celebrated by posting some angst! Classic me, lol. 
> 
> Anywho, SJM give non-Inner Circle members character development challenge

The door slammed behind Kallias with a rusty screech. Lucien winced from the sound. “Sorry.” Kallias said softly.

He walked over to Lucien and bent down, examining Lucien’s back gently.

“Are you here to heal me?” Lucien rasped.

Kallias’s hands twitched. “I-I can’t...” Kallias was never the most powerful High Lord, that wasn’t a secret. He barely had the power to use his own ice magic, he could never heal someone. “But I was given… this...” Kallias pulled out a small crystal jar of a yellowish-green cream.

“Thank you.” Lucien whispered. His breath hitched as he heard Kallias unscrew the disinfecting painkilling ointment. Kallias rubbed his hands together—Lucien used to always complain that they were too cold. He scooped out a small amount and touched the open wounds on Lucien’s back gently. Slowly rubbing the ointment over the split skin.

“I’m… sorry.” Lucien breathed.

“For what?”

“Your father.”

Kallias said nothing, but his hands grew slightly colder. He must have had _some_ magic left then, Lucien thought.

“I never got to tell you; he was always very nice to me.”

“He was nice to everyone.” Kallias said.

“Yeah well, he didn’t have to be. He will be missed every day.”

“Yeah… he will.” Kallias’s hands moved slowly over Lucien’s back. The pressure hurt and made Lucien grimace and squeeze his eyes shut so not as to wince (any movement could put more pressure on the gashes and that would hurt even more).

“I’ve missed your trouble-making.” Kallias said with a weakly cheerful lit in his tone.

Lucien snorted. “Me too. I’ve missed your Court.”

Kallias paused for so long, Lucien wondered if he’d heard him.

“So have I.” He finally responded. “We should have tea again sometime.” He said carefully. His unoccupied hand rubbing comforting circles into the Lucien’s unbroken skin.

“Yes, we should.” Lucien knew he couldn’t say too much. The walls had ears, and those ears had ears too. Mentioning Kallias’s father had been risky enough, the last thing Lucien wanted was to get Kallias in trouble for inciting dissonance amongst Amarantha’s prisoners.

“How’s Tam been?”

“Tired.” Lucien reached up with one hand to the mask on his face. He’d learned to ignore the itch on his cheekbone which had been there for fifty years. “We both have been.”

“Who was it?” Kallias asked.

Lucien knew what he meant. “Andras.”

“I’m sorry. I know you two were close.”

“He’s not the only one who’s been lost.”

“No, he’s not.”

The scratch and squeak of the door moaned as it opened again. Kallias froze. Lucien could smell the lavender from where he crouched in pain.

“You have an hour.” The guard sneered.

The High Lord of the Night Court waved his hand, dismissing the guard.

“Rhys.” Lucien gritted out.

“I came to check up on you, Foxy. How’s your back?”

He didn’t actually care, Lucien knew, he was just here to rub it in Lucien’s face.

“And who’s this-?” Rhysand asked, only able to see Kallias from the back.

Rhysand walked over and Lucien turned to see the terror color Kallias’s face. He had no where to go, no where to run, no way to defend himself. Kallias slowly closed the jar, and took a silent breath. Rhysand put his hand on Kallias and turned him around.

Rhysand’s face dropped, if only for a moment. Then, a sneer.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Rhys snarled.

Kallias’s face went cold, pure unadulterated stone. Something, Lucien knew, was only taught to the Royals of the Winter Court. It was an age old etiquette lesson of theirs, to learn to never show their emotion to an enemy. If all they saw was ice, they’d never know what you were thinking.

Autumn were unable to do anything like that. The hot blood which burned through their veins made them impulsive and unable to mask their emotions…

Well, except for Lucien. But he’d had practice with his mask.

“Amarantha said I could give him some disinfectant for his wounds. He’s useless to her if he can’t watch the girl die with his High Lord.” Kallias said with a disinterested tone.

Rhysand sighed boredly. “Well, I’ve been sent to taunt Lucien. You might as well leave, or I’ll be forced to do the same to you.”

Kallias looked from Rhysand to Lucien. _Go._ Lucien wanted to scream at Kallias. _Go! Run! Get out of here before he gets you too!_

“I’ve survived worse.” Kallias said.

Rhysand looked at the ground, then he sighed. “Very well.”

Rhysand walked over to Lucien and sat down, his legs crisscrossed under him, and picked up Lucien’s chin, staring him in the eye.

“You know, you don’t look so bad with the mask. Hides your pimples.”

Lucien snarled and whipped his chin from Rhysand’s hands. “What? Doesn’t she have anything better to do than send you to annoy me? Like, I don’t know, find some human bone to buff her fingernails with.”

Rhys laughed. Straight out laughed. Even Kallias was surprised by the reaction. Rhys leaned back on his hands. “That one was funny. You’re the only person I know stupid enough to make jokes like that. Must be all that dandelion cotton that’s replaced your brain cells.”

Lucien narrowed his eyes. “Cotton’s better than poison.”

Rhys raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I get it—because I’m a traitor, right?”

Kallias’s hands had become colder again.

Rhys leaned over to looked behind Lucien and tried to meet Kallias’s eyes. “Weigh in on this, Kallias. What do you think is worse, being stupid or being a traitor?”

Kallias didn’t respond.

“Come on, Snowflake, what do you think?”

Kallias clenched his hands slightly, pinching one of Lucien’s scabs.

Lucien yelped, cheeks burning from the fact that he’d done such a thing in front of someone as vile and with a superior-complex as Rhysand.

“Sorry, Lucien.” Kallias breathed. He avoided Rhys’s eyes.

“Well? It isn’t like you to stay quiet, Kallias.”

Kallias slammed the jar shut. “Done. Let it sit for a little before you touch it to something so the nutrients have time to set in.” He stood gracefully. Everything a Winter High Lord did was graceful, Lucien thought (to distract himself from the uncomfortable numb feeling beginning to spread through his back), it had to be a requirement.

“Oh, come on. Getting cold feet, Snowflake?”

Kallias brushed the dirt from his trousers.

Rhysand stood, his face tensing in irritation. “Don’t run away now that I’m after you, Snowflake. I told you if you stayed you’d be a victim too.”

Kallias turned, his stone cold face emotionless. He began to walk towards the door. Rhysand moved so fast it was as if he had leapt over Lucien. Rhysand grabbed Kallias’s shoulder.

“ _Which is worse_?”

Kallias whipped around. The stone cold face was gone, and all there was now was burning cold fury. Rhysand even took a step back. Lucien wanted to shrink in upon himself. Lucien knew Kallias didn’t have the magic power, but the room still seemed to cool, as if the world didn’t even need Kallias’s magic to reflect his emotions.

“Being a murderer.” Kallias said so softly it could have been mistaken for nothing at all. Except it wasn’t. His words were clear.

Rhysand looked like he’d been slapped.

“Kallias-.”

“You expect me to _joke_ with you?” Kallias snarled. “You expect me to _play games_? Oh, Rhysie, you have no _idea_ what you’re up against.”

Rhysand opened his mouth to speak but Kallias continued, cutting him off.

“I may not be as powerful as you, or as smart, or with so much land. But do not mistake me for weak, High Lord.”

Kallias grabbed Rhysand by the collar and pulled him so close that Lucien couldn’t hear what Kallias said to him.

Kallias pushed Rhysand away and the High Lord of Night seemed to crumble under his gaze.

Kallias turned back towards the door. He knocked on the cell door. “Open up. I’m leaving.” Kallias said.

Neither Rhysand nor Lucien spoke. Neither moved.

The door opened, screeching as it went. The guard escorted the High Lord of the Winter Court out, and he did not look back.

* * *

“Kallias! Can I talk to you?” Rhysand called out, catching up to him.

Thesan’s sunset made Kallias’s hair glitter. When the High Lord turned, a small reminiscing smile broke his stony face. “Rhys! How are you?”

“I’m good! I’m good! Well, I’m good now.” Rhysand said. He jogged up to his friend and patted him on the back. “And you? How’s Viviane been?”

Kallias flushed, the pink coloring his white-blue cheeks. “Good. She’s been… good.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“You know, any arguments we have from today on is all your fault.”

“Oh?” A laugh lit Rhys’s tone. “And why is that?”

“Your High Lady. Viviane never asked me for the ceremony because she assumed no one would preform it. Now she’d going to be getting all sorts of ideas.”

“You know what they say,” Rhys gave a shit-eating grin, “Night Court Royals are bad influences. Besides, it’s not like she wouldn’t have had ‘ideas’ on her own.”

“Yeah...” Kallias sighed happily, “she has tons. Oh, Rhys, my friend, she’s so great.”

Rhysand laughed. “I know.”

“I love her so much. You have _no idea_!”

“Well, I’ve found my mate too, Kallias. I _do_ , in fact, know.”

Kallias laughed. Something Rhysand hadn’t heard in years.

In so long.

“… Kallias?”

“Yeah, Old Friend?”

“I’m sorry.” Rhysand whispered. Tears sprung to his eyes. He took Kallias’s lapels in his hands, and cried into his shirt. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Kill me for what I’ve done, Kallias. It’s the only way I can think to make up for it.” Rhysand fell to his knees as emotion overwhelmed him.

He’d killed twenty seven children.

Twenty seven children of his best friend.

“I’m so sorry.”

Kallias knelt down to his friend’s level. He wiped a cold finger across Rhys’s cheek, freezing his tears.

Kallias brought Rhys’s face up to look at him.

“I can never forgive you Old Friend. Some things aren’t forgiveable.”

“ _I know I know I know I know iknowiknow-_ ”

“Do not harm yourself on my account. Torture yourself, Old Friend, weep and regret. But do not harm yourself. It is the past, and though it will never be forgotten or forgiven, we can move on. I can move on. We will not avenge them against you. We would never threaten the safety of your younglings. We are not monsters.” The words bit into Rhysand’s soul. Mainly because he knew they were true. “Fear not, Old Friend. Rise and be by my side, there is a war coming and no time for old allies to turn on one another.”

Rhysand ascended back to his feet.

Kallias smiled.

Rhysand smiled back.

Kallias pulled Rhysand into a hug, and the last of Rhysand’s tears fell from his eyes, though he doubted he would ever stop crying for the younglings gone.

“Rise, my friend. Rise, fight, and live.”

 

 

 _I know what you’re doing. I know the games you play, Old Friend. And you know me, so know this. You went too far. And you’re going to have to live with the fact that you know if you were put back in the situation, you would do the same. I curse you to live with that, Old Friend. And I hope you realize that we are no longer trapped Under the Mountain_ together _, just trying to survive and keep the rest of our people safe. No, Rhysie. Now, you’re trapped Under the Mountain with_ me _._

 


End file.
